God must be so patient with His people.  And often disappointed.  Again and again, we turn away from God, get ourselves in trouble, ask for His help and when He does, we turn back… temporarily.  This is the basic story of God’s people throughout time, and the core of the entire book of Judges.  In fact, it’s even got a name: the Sin Cycle.  It begins as each section of Judges begins: “The people of God turned away from God and began worshiping other things.”  For them, it was usually Baal and Asherah.  For us it can be ourselves, or power, or control, or comfort.  Whatever it is, it leads us away from God and soon we are in trouble.

The Midianites or the Caananites were often the cause of the trouble for the Israelites.  For us, our trouble comes in doubt or debt, in pain or broken relationships, in addictions or attacks.  No matter who we are, when we get into trouble we usually turn to God for help.  And in patience, and disappointment, God comes to the rescue.  Not always right away – sometimes the wait is the lesson – but eventually, God rescues us.

And in gratitude, we follow and obey God… for a while.  But soon, the distractions of this world lead us away again, and the cycle starts all over again.  How long this cycle lasts varies, but usually it lasts as long as it takes for us to turn back to God.

Where are you in the cycle right now?  And how patient has God been with you?  And how much must He love you?

God must be so patient with His people.  And often disappointed.  Again and again, we turn away from God, get ourselves in trouble, ask for His help and when He does, we turn back… temporarily.  This is the basic story of God’s people throughout time, and the core of the entire book of Judges.  In fact, it’s even got a name: the Sin Cycle.  It begins as each section of Judges begins: “The people of God turned away from God and began worshiping other things.”  For them, it was usually Baal and Asherah.  For us it can be ourselves, or power, or control, or comfort.  Whatever it is, it leads us away from God and soon we are in trouble.

The Midianites or the Caananites were often the cause of the trouble for the Israelites.  For us, our trouble comes in doubt or debt, in pain or broken relationships, in addictions or attacks.  No matter who we are, when we get into trouble we usually turn to God for help.  And in patience, and disappointment, God comes to the rescue.  Not always right away – sometimes the wait is the lesson – but eventually, God rescues us.

And in gratitude, we follow and obey God… for a while.  But soon, the distractions of this world lead us away again, and the cycle starts all over again.  How long this cycle lasts varies, but usually it lasts as long as it takes for us to turn back to God.

Where are you in the cycle right now?  And how patient has God been with you?  And how much must He love you?

There is a lot in this reading to notice, but one thing truly stood out to me.  And it was the last thing we read.

I have, since high school theater, been pretty good in front of a crowd.  Theater taught me to be comfortable on stage and how to improvise when necessary.  These skills have made being in front of a church, a camp, a conference, or any group of people pretty easy for me and I thank God for it.  This is true everywhere but one particular place – my home church.  I have yet to do anything in front of my home church without making a mistake and then getting stage fright and compounding that problem.  From singing, to preaching, to acting, to sharing a testimony, for some reason I have a block when it comes to my home church.

It seems Jesus didn’t have that particular block, and yet it is at His home church that His message is first rejected.  But the reason for the rejection is an interesting one.  He begins by reading from the prophet Isaiah, giving the mission statement for His entire ministry.  He then, quite arrogantly it seems, proclaims that this reading has been fulfilled in their presence.  I’ve heard sermons about how this seeming arrogance got Jesus kicked out.  But the crowd’s reaction to this is actually a very positive one.  They “spoke well of Him” and were quite proud of their hometown boy.  But then He continues.

It’s the next comments that draws the ire of this Jewish crowd.  Jesus, through two OT examples, proclaims that all He has come to do will not be reserved for the Jews, but will be for the Gentiles as well.  The two examples are the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian, both foreigners blessed by God.  It is this that riles the crowd and led to His banishment from His home church.

Are there people that you feel shouldn’t receive the grace and blessing of God?  What are the ways that you are building borders around your “group” to keep God’s blessing in?

“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared in the sight of all people;
a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Looking at Jesus, Simeon proclaims to have seen God’s salvation, prepared in the sight of all people.  Simeon, a man filled with the Holy Spirit as few before him had been, proclaims Jesus as God’s salvation.  This is not hard for us to take given what we know of Jesus.  But Jesus is 8 days old here, and Mary, less than a year from her encounter with Gabriel the angel, hears him loud and clear.

Jesus is the light spoken of throughout the Old Testament prophets, the light that will reveal God to the Gentiles.  John will begin his Gospel with this image of a light shining in the darkness.  Jesus will use this image to describe Himself as the Light of the World and His disciples as bearers of that same light.  It is He who can show God to the Gentiles because He is the very image of God.

But He is also the glory of God’s people.  That’s us, folks.  Our glory is not in the size of our churches, or the amount of ministries we can run, or even the number of people we can help.  Our glory is not in our structures, or our leaders, or even in our beliefs.  Our glory is only in Jesus Christ, for He is our glory.

Simeon witnessed Jesus’ dedication and bore witness to Jesus Himself.  We are the same witnesses.  We bear witness to Jesus’ activity in our lives with our every word and action.  How will you bear witness today?

“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared in the sight of all people;
a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Simeon is one of my favorite characters in the bible.  There is little we know about him, yet much we can infer.

Simeon was tsadik, “a righteous one”.  This title was not just nicety but was a title given to those who most closely followed God’s law, lived with the intention of being righteous above all else.  Jesus’ father Joseph was tsadik until he agreed to marry Mary, that was.  Marrying a pregnant woman lost him the title.  But Simeon was one who lived his life completely for God and His righteousness.

Simeon was most likely Anawim.  The Anawim were the pious poor of Israel, those who awaited the coming of Messiah like no others.  Both Mary and Joseph, along with Elizabeth and Zechariah, were most likely of the Anawim.  These people were most often found around the temple where they worshiped and prayed for the coming Christ.

But Simeon was one more thing.  He was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Big deal, we think, since we are ALL filled with the Holy Spirit.  But at this time, before Christ’s ministry, before Pentecost, being filled with the Holy Spirit was rare.  And rarer still in the centuries since the prophets stopped prophecying.  The Holy Spirit “B.C.” would come upon a person for a God-given task and once the task was complete, would leave them.  Few if any could be said that “the Holy Spirit was on him.”

Through the Spirit, Simeon had been told that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, and here Jesus was.  And so, with the completion of his ministry, Simeon gives us this beautiful hymn, a hymn we’ll look at more closely tomorrow.